The Port Authority has planned massive fare and toll hikes for the PATH and its bridges and tunnels, made worse by billions taken from the agency by Governors Christie and Cuomo. Photo: Terraplanner via Flickr.

Crossing the Hudson River will get much more expensive under a proposed Port Authority plan to sharply increase tolls and fares on its four bridges, two tunnels and the PATH train. The increases are a result of the poor economy, the costs of rebuilding after the attacks of September 11, and the expensive repairs needed on the agency’s aging infrastructure, said the Port Authority. Left unstated was the enormous cost of raids on the agency by the state governments of New York and New Jersey.

Under the Port Authority proposal, the cost to drive a car across a bridge or tunnel would increase by $4 this September, with another $2 increase in 2014. Tolls will increase the most on the costliest users. By 2014, the peak E-ZPass toll would be increased by 75 percent. Off-peak tolls would be doubled.

Truck tolls will nearly double during most times of day, reflecting the exponentially greater wear and tear inflicted by heavier vehicles. The Port Authority also hopes to disincentivize cash payments by tacking on a $3 surcharge, rising to $5 in 2014, for those who haven’t switched to E-ZPass.

PATH riders will also be forced to pay. The base fare will rise from $1.75 to $2.75; with discounts, the average fare will increase from $1.30 to $2.00 per trip. PATH riders will be spared from additional fare hikes in 2014.

To sell the toll package, which needs approval from both Governor Andrew Cuomo and Governor Chris Christie and is sure to be a heavy political lift, the Port Authority is broadcasting both its record of fiscal responsibility under popular but politically threatened executive director Chris Ward and the necessity of the projects the toll increases would fund.

The agency’s operating budget has been flat for three years, they said, while the capital budget has already been cut by $5 billion. That comes even as the costs of rebuilding at the World Trade Center have topped $11 billion and extra security requirements have added another $6 billion to the agency’s costs. The proposed toll increases, including those scheduled for 2014, would raise roughly $1 billion, according to the New York Times.

But Christie and Cuomo also bear responsibility for the Port Authority’s budget.

“Instead of finding new and steady revenue streams to pay for growing transportation infrastructure needs in each state, both Governors want to use the Port Authority as a piggy bank,” said Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director Kate Slevin in a statement. “Governor Christie is relying on the Port to contribute $1.8 billion to pay for road and bridge projects that should be paid for by the state’s bankrupt transportation capital program… Governor Cuomo is banking on $380 million in Port Authority funds to help pay for the remaining three years (2012-2014) of the MTA’s capital program.”

Continued Slevin, “New Jersey has its hand in the Port Authority’s right pocket, and New York is ready to take from its left. The result is this proposal.”

That’s over $2 billion that the governors have already grabbed from the Port Authority. Because the Port Authority receives no state or local tax revenues, the $2 billion must be made up for in the toll and fare hikes.

Instead of looking like villains, however, Christie and Cuomo may be setting themselves up to look like heroes. According to the Wall Street Journal, the toll hikes proposed are much larger than what the Port Authority had been considering last year, perhaps so that the governors can ride in to the rescue and bring the toll hike down to a $2 increase.

Even so, many say that the toll increases are a necessity in order to pay for needed infrastructure. Billion dollar repairs are needed on the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel Helix, while major projects like raising the Bayonne Bridge to allow larger ships into Port Newark and building a bus garage adjacent to the Midtown bus terminal may also cost ten figures. Said Kathy Wylde of the business group the Partnership for New York City, “No one likes higher tolls, but without them, key infrastructure projects will come to an abrupt stop.”

The NYC Bridge Centennial Commission, co-founded by “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz, organized a re-enactment today near the Williamsburg Bridge, calling attention to the hundredth anniversary of the last toll collected on the East River bridges. Mayor William J. Gaynor’s century-old decision to eliminate bridge tolls translates to a cumulative loss of $31 billion in potential revenue for NYC. Tune in to hear what $31 million could do for the city’s transportation system.

Advocates for the city's bridges reenact the last toll payment on the Williamsburg Bridge, one hundred years ago. At the time, automobile tolls were only a dime. Pushcarts, bicycles, and horse-drawn vehicles paid a nickel. Photo: Noah Kazis

What transportation projects would you build with $31 billion? That’s how much would have been raised had the tolls on the four city-owned East River Bridges not been removed 100 years ago today.

“We would have a subway that runs on Second Avenue from the Bronx to the Battery,” said Sam Schwartz, the former city traffic commissioner and the co-founder of the New York City Bridges Centennial Commission. “We would see a subway to Staten Island which was started in 1923 and was aborted.”

Not only would $31 billion have paid for major new transit projects, said Schwartz, it would have kept those free bridges in a state of good repair rather than the near-collapse they fell into in the 1980s. In 1988, recalled Schwartz, he had to close the entire Williamsburg Bridge for three months in 1988 to prevent it from falling into the river. “I would jealously look over at the Verrazano Bridge being painted and repainted,” he said. “The difference at the Verrazano Bridge is you pay a $13 toll. You get what you pay for.”

When Mayor William J. Gaynor tore out the tollbooths, driving across the bridge only cost a dime. Cyclists paid a nickel, and horse riders three cents. Even at those now-minimal rates, the payment of which was reenacted today by advocates in period dress and antique vehicles, the tolls would have raised over $1 billion in the last century, according to Schwartz. Had the tolls remained in place and then been raised over time to match the tolls on the Triborough Bridge, they’d have raised $31 billion in 2011 dollars.

Today, the Williamsburg Bridge is crushed by traffic, even at midday, because there is no price to drive across it. Photo: Noah Kazis

Today’s reenactment took place at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. The grinding traffic in both directions spoke to another motive for restoring the tolls one hundred years later. In addition to raising revenue, bridge tolls would effectively curb congestion by ending the giveaway of some of the world’s most in-demand roads.

At the time, Gaynor saw removing the tolls as a way of knitting together the new unified city of New York, which had only been formed thirteen years earlier. But even then, it was widely understood that taking out tolls meant giving a break to relatively privileged drivers over the rest of the city. The New York Times wrote that Francis Bent, a Tammany-aligned alderman from Brooklyn, “did not believe in removing tolls paid for the most part by wealthy automobile owners ‘who did not care whether they paid tolls or not.’”

More pictures after the jump.

Sam Schwartz holds up the cover of the New York Post announcing the total closure of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1998. A lack of funds had doomed the bridge to disrepair and at the time, it wasn't clear if it would ever reopen. Photo: Noah Kazis

Even if toll rates had stayed at ten cents per automobile, they'd have raised over a billion dollars in the last century. The tolls on horses wouldn't be raising too much these days, though. Photo: Noah Kazis

Republican Senator John Bonacic would allow New York City to institute East River bridge tolls... for a price. Photo: nysenate.gov

Five Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Bonacic, are making transit advocates an offer they can probably refuse. The payoff is appealing: state authorization for bridge tolls on the East River bridges. But the price they are demanding in return, the total repeal of the payroll mobility tax outside New York City, is too high to pay.

The basic contours of a road pricing-for-reduced payroll tax swap could potentially turn into a big win for transit riders — the right deal would reduce traffic, improve bus speeds and reliability, and raise a substantial amount to plug the gap in the MTA capital program.

Bonacic’s bill, however, is not the deal transit advocates want to aim for. It would only authorize the New York City Council to institute tolls over the East River bridges, not the Harlem River bridges (a fact which may be related to the fact that four of the five sponsors represent the Hudson Valley, not Long Island). And it seems that the rate to charge motorists would be left up to the city. So right off the bat there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether the City Council would act and what level of tolling they would consent to.

If the city charged $2 tolls in each direction, as was proposed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and endorsed by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio in a 2009 plan, East River-only tolls would likely raise around $240 million, according to an analysis by road pricing expert Charles Komanoff. (UPDATE: Due to revisions in his model, Komanoff now estimates that $2 tolls would bring in $300 million.)

In comparison, the seven suburban counties in the MTA region contributed roughly 30 percent of total payroll tax revenues. In 2010, the payroll tax brought in just under $1.35 billion. Without the suburban counties, that would have dropped by $405 million.

In other words, swapping the suburban payroll tax for $2 East River bridge tolls would end up costing the MTA roughly $165 million each year.

The Bonacic bill does not appear to have an Assembly equivalent yet, suggesting that it isn’t going anywhere right now. It does, however, mark the first attempt to legislate an often-suggested swap: a lower suburban payroll tax in exchange for bridge tolls or congestion pricing. A differently structured deal, one which partially reduces the suburban payroll tax while guaranteeing a more robust road pricing system, could be much more attractive, especially given that raising revenues through bridge tolls has the added benefit of cutting congestion and speeding up buses.

It’s possible, of course, that the city would decide to charge more than $2 each way under Bonacic’s plan. Even if the new bridge tolls were as high as the currently-tolled MTA bridges and tunnels, however, that would barely make up for the lost payroll tax revenue. Using the Independent Budget Office’s recent calculation of bridge toll revenue and holding constant the share of Komanoff’s East River bridge estimate to the total Silver plan revenue, even tolls that high would only raise around $517 million. That would net the MTA a small profit (but unless the tolls steadily increase over time, it could be an ever-shrinking profit — by 2014, the suburban share of estimated payroll tax revenue is projected to reach $485 million).

More importantly, once you’ve traded away suburban payroll tax revenue, you can’t get it back. There’s only one chance to get this deal right, and if you institute tolls just to offset a suburban tax break, you can’t use the revenue to pay for system repairs. To close the MTA’s potentially disastrous $10 billion capital plan deficit, both the payroll tax and bridge tolls will be necessary.

While the congestion-busting effects of East River bridge tolls are tempting, transit riders can’t afford to give up one source of funding without getting a bigger revenue source in return. Otherwise New York is still on track for a combination of rising fares and deteriorating transit service. The verdict on this version of the payroll tax-for-bridge tolls swap should be clear: No deal.

NYC is leaving a lot of money on the table so that the East and Harlem River bridges can stay free and choked with traffic. Photo: Aaron Naparstek

Those transportation proposals would have merit purely for their effect on traffic congestion, bus speeds, and street safety. Now the IBO number crunchers have put some dollar figures on how much New York City is passing up with its biggest giveaways to motorists, and it’s a lot.

By the IBO’s estimate, ending the free ride over the un-tolled East and Harlem River bridges could raise $970 million each year. That’s much higher than recent legislative proposals — Sheldon Silver’s 2009 bridge toll plan would have raised roughly $450 million, for example — because rather than tie the tolls to the subway fare, the IBO considers setting prices to match the currently tolled MTA bridges and tunnels.

Under that scenario, the East River bridges would have a one-way price of $9.60, the same as taking the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel round trip, while the Harlem River bridges would cost the same as a round trip over the Henry Hudson Bridge, or $4.40. In fact, the total revenue from such a pricing set-up could easily top $1 billion. The IBO assumed that trucks would pay the same toll as automobiles, but on the current MTA bridges, they pay significantly more.

While a real-world bridge-tolling scenario would almost certainly involve Albany votes and an arrangement to dedicate the revenues toward transit, the report sticks with the premise that these measures could be used to fortify the city’s budget. Throughout the report, the IBO discusses ideas and refrains from endorsing policies (in fact it offers arguments for and against each proposal).

The IBO raises the possibility of ending the city’s on-street parking giveaway as well. A pilot residential permit parking system charging just $100 a year would raise $2 million for each 25,000 permits it put out. Given that there are millions of on-street spaces in New York City, and market prices in many neighborhoods are probably higher than $100 per year, the city could conceivably raise a huge sum if a large-scale parking permit program, which needs Albany approval to be enacted, were politically tenable.

At metered spaces, the city isn’t giving away public space for free, but they are offering a steep discount, which leads to excessive cruising and double-parking. Expanding ParkSmart, which charges higher meter rates during the peak hours for parking, would reduce the discount, curb traffic and illegal parking, and raise a few dollars. The IBO calculates that a ParkSmart expansion that increases the meter rate by 75 cents for four hours a day, applied to 21,000 metered spaces in Manhattan below 86th Street, would raise $13.8 million a year. Another $12 million could be generated each year by making Manhattan residents pay the full tax on garage parking in their borough (they are currently exempt).

Other transportation-related suggestions in the report include making private school students pay for yellow bus service and MetroCards ($37 million), restoring the fare on the Staten Island Ferry ($4.8 million) and replacing late-night Staten Island Ferry service with buses ($3.7 million).

At the time, it was no secret that the package was insufficient, leaving the MTA capital program largely unfunded. The news quickly got worse. Revenue from the payroll tax, which was supposed to raise about $1.5 billion per year, kept coming up short. Throw in state raids of dedicated MTA funds, and Albany’s neglect of transit has hit straphangers with the deepest service cuts in a generation and the third consecutive year of fare hikes.

Tom Namako reports in the Post today that the payroll tax shortfall is not a temporary glitch, as State Senators claimed when the problem first cropped up. In fact, every piece of the 2009 funding packing is not meeting projections, and it’s starting to look like a fact of life:

And the latest jostle for commuters is that the wide-ranging “bailout” package of fees and taxes approved in 2009 is coming in about $400 million short of projections that were established earlier this year, statistics show.

The controversial business tax — which hits all business owners in the MTA region with a 34-cent levy for every $100 of payroll — appears to be $321 million under expectations, MTA data show.

Overall, it will bring in about $1.34 billion instead of the $1.66 billion that bean counters projected.

And the “MTA aid” levies — like a 50-cent surcharge on every yellow-cab ride along with car-rental, garage-parking and license fees — are under projections by $60 million, the numbers show.

Road pricing was the missing piece in 2009, and it’s the missing piece today, MTA board member Andrew Albert told the Post:

“The riders have done their part with service cuts and fare hikes, but motorists aren’t doing their part,” fumed Andrew Albert, an MTA board member.

He added that the bailout bill “is not a good package” and that city’s free bridges should be tolled to help finance mass transit.

The state legislature is not thinking about completing the transit funding picture, however. They’re talking about weakening transit funding that’s already in place. As soon as they gained the majority in the State Senate, Dean Skelos’s Republicans immediately made noise about repealing the underperforming payroll tax.

With Albany set to wrestle with a budget gap greater than $9 billion next year, the payroll tax could be an irresistible bargaining chit — the temptation will be strong to give up the payroll tax revenues in suburban counties as part of a larger deal to win the votes of those legislators.

Andrew Cuomo and NYC legislators can’t let that happen. The MTA still has a $9 billion hole in its capital program, and the slightest tremor in its operating budget could set off another round of service cuts or fare hikes. The payroll tax, while not meeting projections, is now a bulwark against utter disaster for straphangers. Trading away any part of it would be a betrayal of New York City transit riders.

The lack of an eastbound toll on the Verrazano allows trucks to make three major crossings without paying tolls, creating a counterclockwise loop of truck traffic. Image: Sam Schwartz.

The one-way tolls on the Verrazano Bridge have been a major cause of truck traffic in New York City since they were instituted in 1986. Though numerous efforts to restore two-way tolls have failed over the last two and a half decades, technological progress may finally bring victory within reach. Congressman Jerry Nadler thinks that the MTA’s moves toward cashless tolling could make two-way tolls politically feasible, and he’s trying to pass the federal legislation necessary to allow them.

The one-way tolls concentrate truck traffic in the city along specific routes and hit some communities — like Chinatown — especially hard. Trucks from New Jersey can drive into Staten Island, cross east on the Verrazano for free, drive up the BQE or Brooklyn local roads to the free Manhattan Bridge, then cross Lower Manhattan and head back to New Jersey for free through the Port Authority’s tunnels, which impose no tolls heading westbound. This long counterclockwise circle can save trucking companies a fortune in tolls, while endangering and clogging up New York City’s streets for everyone else.

“A two-way toll would eliminate the flow of trucks entering New York City via Staten Island in order to escape the charges on the Hudson River bridge and tunnel crossings,” said Nadler, who represents hard-hit Lower Manhattan. “With the MTA now poised to test new toll-collection technologies, which are likely to be implemented across the region, all New Yorkers will reap the benefits and the MTA will generate new revenue that it sorely needs.”

You may be wondering: How did such a senseless policy get enacted in the first place? The answer: Staten Island politics. Residents were sick of the long lines of traffic building up behind the tollbooths on the Staten Island side of the bridge, spewing exhaust near their homes.

In response, Congressman Guy Molinari, with strong support from Senator Al D’Amato, stuck a provision into federal transportation law forbidding two-way tolling across the Verrazano in 1986. Eliminating the eastbound charge meant that tolls only caused back-ups on the bridge itself and in Bay Ridge. The MTA was opposed to the move at the time, and the following year reported increased traffic through Lower Manhattan and millions in lost toll revenue as a result of the switch.

For years, prominent New York politicians have fought to restore two-way tolling. In 1988, Governor Mario Cuomo recommended that two-way tolls be allowed at least for trucks, a move that had the support of Mayor Ed Koch. In 1993, Mayor David Dinkins joined with the Manhattan and Brooklyn borough presidents and the MTA to petition the feds for two-way tolls.

Those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1995, the one-way tolls were actually further entrenched, when the arrangement was codified in a permanent federal law, the National Highway System Designation Act, for the first time.

Attempts to bring back two-way tolls and dam up the river of truck traffic remained something of a regular, if futile, occurrence. Nadler’s predecessor, Ted Weiss, was also a fierce proponent of two-way tolling. And Nadler himself introduced legislation to allow one-way tolls in 1999, 2001 and 2003, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Nadler thinks the situation might be different this year. The key is cashless tolling, a technology ready for widespread implementation. The MTA recently announced its plans to use cashless tolling for all traffic on the Henry Hudson Bridge by 2012. If traffic doesn’t even have to stop to pay the tolls, Staten Island’s whole objection to eastbound tolls should disappear.

According to a spokesperson for Nadler, the Congressman is working with Transportation Committee chair James Oberstar to determine the right legislative vessel for the Verrazano language. The federal transportation bill, which seems to have new momentum, is one option, he said.

Nadler’s district director Rob Gottheim was at a Manhattan Community Board 2 Tuesday night talking up the plan.

Even with the advent of cashless tolling, however, two-way tolls could still be a heavy lift politically. The unused eastbound tollbooths were recently torn down and at that event, Staten Island Congressman Michael McMahon announced that “it gets rid of the specter of the two-way toll.” And unlike past mayors, Michael Bloomberg doesn’t appear to have ever publicly spoken up in favor of two-way tolls. We have calls in with both McMahon and Bloomberg’s offices to confirm their positions.

Pedro Espada didn't show up for last night's transportation debate. Neither did his leading challenger, Gustavo Rivera. Photo: Noah Kazis

Last night’s 33rd Senate District transportation debate pitted two candidates against each other who are unlikely to ever appear on the same ballot: Democrat Daniel Padernacht and Green John Reynolds. Padernacht is running a distant third place in polling for the September 14 primary, after incumbent Pedro Espada Jr. and challenger Gustavo Rivera. Neither Espada nor Rivera showed up at last night’s debate: Espada refuses to debate his opponents and Rivera chose to attend an NAACP forum instead.

Unseating Espada this cycle is perhaps the top target of public transit supporters (and good government organizations, and tenants’ advocates, and labor unions, and… let’s just say he’s made some enemies in the last few years). The district, which covers the area west of Bronx Park and south of Van Cortlandt Park, has extensive transit coverage, including the B, D, 4, and 1 subway lines, two MetroNorth lines, and the Fordham Road Select Bus Service. Among all households in the district, 71.5 percent don’t own a car [PDF]. But even so, Espada led the opposition to tolling the free bridges onto Manhattan, all but dooming his constituents to fare hikes and service cuts.

Since Espada’s cardinal transportation sin was over transit funding, it’s worth asking if his challengers are any better. Though Padernacht said he’d fight for state funding for transit at last night’s debate, he told the crowd that he doesn’t want either road pricing or increased taxation to raise revenues. “The Bronx will become a parking lot for Manhattan,” he said of congestion pricing, and argued that higher taxes would only drive residents and businesses from New York.

I approached Padernacht after the debate to ask him how he would find the billions that the MTA needs, if those two revenue sources are off the table. “The first thing I would do is look to cut costs,” he said, suggesting that limited buses could be eliminated during midday hours and that smaller vehicles might be cheaper to operate on low-ridership routes. After that, he said, he’d have to “brainstorm the issue.”

In Rivera’s response to the TA/TSTC transportation survey, he rightly pointed the finger at Albany for cutting off transit funding over the past few decades and forcing the MTA to drop ever deeper into debt. On what to do, however, Rivera showed himself to be an expert hedger.

“I take the subway in NYC to work every day,” he wrote. “If elected to the State Senate, I will put a new priority on public transportation and seek to stop the MTA from borrowing its way into a hole too deep to dig out of.” No specifics, but dodging the controversial issues of road pricing and tax increases, of course, hardly compares to the obstructionism and stunts pulled by Espada last year.

Green Party candidate John Reynolds suggested making the state income tax more progressive to pay for transit and creating a state-owned bank to help build infrastructure. “The austerity measures that are being imposed on this community are unacceptable,” he said.

All the challengers were supportive of efforts to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety. Two intersections in the district, both along the Grand Concourse, are among the ten most dangerous for pedestrians in the city, according to CrashStat.

Padernacht boosted greenways as particularly effective in both attracting more pedestrians and cyclists and keeping them safe. He also suggested keeping unlicensed drivers off the streets by actively seeking them out and helping them find alternative modes of transport.

In his survey, Rivera suggested reducing the speed limit on narrow streets to 25 miles per hour and said stepping up enforcement of speeding, possibly through automated cameras. He also would consider impounding the vehicles of those whose licenses are suspended.

Reynolds suggested that the state devote more funding to bike lanes and pedestrian infrastructure.

The most recent poll for the primary has Espada at 30 percent, Rivera at 20 and Padernacht at 8, with 42 percent of likely voters still undecided.

Photo of the Willis Avenue Bridge floating by barge under the Triborough's Harlem River span: MTA

Today the new span settled into its final position, where crews will put on the finishing touches to connect it to approaches on each side of the Harlem River. The new Willis Avenue Bridge will be an upgrade in many ways (for starters, it's not 110 years old), but like its predecessor, it will be free to drive across, beckoning to toll-shopping motorists and incurring all sorts of costs in air pollution, lost time, noise and danger caused by unnecessary traffic.

The act of replacing the bridge is rather expensive too. To mark the arrival of the bridge at its destination, the city released some figures today showing the pricetag for the replacement -- $612 million -- as well as how much all the recent bridge work in the city has cost.

Since 2002, the city has spent more than $5 billion on bridge projects. It has cost a bundle to maintain the linchpins of NYC's ostensibly free road network, including:

• $508 million on the Brooklyn Bridge;
• $364 million on seven bridges along the Belt Parkway;
• $277 million on the Williamsburg Bridge;
• $168 million on the Queensboro Bridge; and
• $150 million on the Manhattan Bridge.

Of all the revenue options offered by the Progressive Caucus, bridge tolls were the second-least popular. Click here for larger image. Graphic: Progressive Caucus.

The newly-formed caucus is still in the process of inventing itself. Though the 12 members have signed on to a general statement of principles, precisely what they will advocate for remains to be seen. Two months ago, the caucus released a survey asking New Yorkers how they'd fix the city's budget gap. That survey included a question about tolling bridges into Manhattan.

The results show just how much organizing remains to be done around tolling. Of all the revenue sources surveyed, bridge tolls were the second-most unpopular. Only a property tax hike fared worse. Bridge tolls still had more supporters than opponents, but since every revenue option did, that's probably just due to the framing of the question.  

Interestingly, despite the opposition to bridge tolls, when it came to open-ended responses, support for congestion pricing was one of the most common. So was raising revenue through stepped-up enforcement of traffic and parking regulations. 

In other words, support for road pricing is strong -- proponents went to the extra trouble of filling in the open-ended questions -- but not broadly distributed. And there are a lot of opponents, even among self-selected respondents to a Progressive Caucus survey.

The caucus's statement of principles calls for "a more sustainable and environmentally just city" and mentions a "sound transportation system" specifically. That should entail strong support for transit, the clean mode choice of most working-class New Yorkers. But if the Progressive Caucus pays attention to these survey results, support for bridge tolls (and presumably congestion pricing as well) may end up pretty low on the agenda. 

Senate District 31 contenders Miosotis Muñoz, Mark Levine, Anna Lewis, and Adriano Espaillat

Eric Schneiderman has represented District 31 since 1998. Though he has distinguished himself as a progressive who lauded PlaNYC and publicly blamed Albany for abandoning transit riders, Senator Schneiderman has basically been a no-show when it comes to the current MTA budget crisis. Now that Schneiderman's bid for state attorney general has opened up the seat, transit-dependent voters in the district's Democratic primary will have to choose from a field of candidates with varying views on providing the MTA with adequate, long-term funding -- though none are calling for road pricing to shift part of the burden to drivers entering their neighborhoods.

Among District 31 aspirants, Adriano Espaillat is probably the most widely known. That is, the Assembly member is known to be inconsistent when it comes to supporting stable revenue streams for the city's transit system. Espaillat was a vocal supporter of congestion pricing. But a year later he came out strongly against tolling the "free" bridges of Upper Manhattan, and never mind that some 80 percent of households in his Assembly district do not own a car. Espaillat also lambasted the MTA for its plan to cut student MetroCards, insisting that Albany had done its part to shore up transit finances. (Full disclosure: Espaillat, like Schneiderman, represents part of Inwood, where I live. In addition to covering Espaillat's maneuvering for Streetsblog, I posted the occasional related rant on my now-defunct neighborhood blog. Espaillat once accused me of making false statements about his record, but did not respond when pressed for specifics.)

Miosotis Muñoz is a former aide to Congressman Charlie Rangel who served as a Latino organizer for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential primary. She worked for former Manhattan borough presidents Ruth Messinger and C. Virginia Fields and did a short stint as district manager for Community Board 11. Muñoz told Streetsblog that maintaining and expanding transit service is essential to providing access to jobs while keeping cars off the roads, and cited the Second Avenue subway as a "critical" project.

However, though she supports a return of the commuter tax, Muñoz said she would have to be convinced of the merits of bridge tolls. "To begin with, people are financially strained," said Muñoz, "and they have to go to places where they're going to be able to get the best buck for their money sometimes. To continue to tax people that are already financially strained is going to cause a much more difficult situation for families in terms of how they're going to be able to pay the rent and take care of the essentials." Muñoz said she favors carpool lanes as an incentive to reduce traffic. 

In order to concentrate on his Senate campaign, Mark Levine left his spot on Community Board 12, where he served as chair of the transportation committee. A former teacher and founder of a credit union for low-income Upper Manhattanites, Levine is also a Democratic district leader.

"We need new revenue so [the MTA is] not perpetually on the brink of fiscal insolvency," Levine said. "Albany's been underfunding them for 15 years or more, and we're totally paying the price now."

Levine supports reinstating the commuter tax "in a way that's dedicated to transit," and is in favor of the recently imposed payroll tax on suburban counties. Not surprisingly, Levine is against fare increases. He also believes there is merit to the charge that the MTA suffers from bloat and waste, citing the recent "$100,000 club" storyline as an example. "My sense is that there's probably some room to cut in the central bureaucracy. I know that's generally a cliche that people put forward to avoid tough decisions, but I actually sincerely believe that that needs to be looked at seriously, with so many people making $100,000 or more."

Levine backs tolling the East River bridges, but like Espaillat, he stops short of endorsing a charge for Harlem River crossings. Levine recognizes the cognitive dissonance there, and when I pointed out that bus and subway riders already pay to cross the Broadway and University Heights Bridges, he conceded the point. "I consider myself a very strong advocate for the livable streets agenda," Levine said. However, he concluded, "The sentiment is that those bridges are essentially local streets."

With a slew of big-time endorsements, including that of Schneiderman, Espaillat is the Democratic establishment candidate of choice in this primary. Also in the running is attorney Anna Lewis, who at deadline had not responded to our request for comment on transit funding.

Whomever the voters choose, it looks as if toll-shopping suburban motorists will have nothing to fear from District 31's next representative.

Monserrate, of course, was expelled from the State Senate and then defeated in a special election for his old seat by Assembly Member José Peralta. Peralta was one of the leading opponents of bridge tolls in the Assembly and put his opposition to congestion pricing front and center on his campaign website. In Peralta's Senate district, 53.3 percent of households do not own a car [PDF].

Carlos Ramos, Jr. and Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter.

In a press release tied to the Staten Island Ferry crash, Ramos announced his general support for sustainable transportation. "Innovative ways to relieve vehicular congestion in the city, such as the 'Yankee Ferry' here in the Bronx, should be explored in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and thwart potential environmental hazards," the statement read.

In the district where Ramos is running, 67.0 percent of households do not own a car [PDF].

Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, a leader in the fight for higher wages at the Kingsbridge Armory, has taken on scandal-battered Pedro Espada. Before she takes any position on MTA financing, Pilgrim-Hunter told us, she wants to "look at the books -- the real books -- to look at what's going on and how this money is being managed." 

She stressed that she supported the MTA ("We have the best transportation system in the world, just about"), but declined to give a specific answer about how she'd help provide the transit system with financial stability. "We've seen service cuts, we've seen fare hikes, we've seen new taxes," she said. "Somehow it doesn't seem to work, or it's just a temporary fix. I think we need to look at the entire structure of the MTA and whether it needs an overhaul."

Pilgrim-Hunter also spoke about her last big tangle with the MTA, over the location of a Select Bus Service stop in her neighborhood. She thought that the stop, located at the bottom of a steep hill, wasn't accessible to senior citizens or the disabled. Though Pilgrim-Hunter was successful in getting the stop moved, she still has doubts about the Fordham Road bus improvements overall. "It has caused us to lose businesses," she said, "because the stops have taken away the parking for the businesses to get their deliveries and for their customers to come."

In the district where Pilgrim-Hunter is running, 71.5 percent of households do not own a car [PDF].

The primaries are only four months away, and election season is starting to heat up in New York. All signs point to strong anti-incumbent sentiment among voters, with several entrenched legislators facing primary challenges. In Brooklyn's 27th State Senate district, long-time incumbent Carl Kruger is facing a primary challenge for the seat he's held since 1994.

Kruger is best known to Streetsblog readers for his role last year in gutting the Ravitch Plan and killing bridge tolls, which would have put the transit system on steadier financial footing. His opponent, Igor Oberman, has made support for public transit a centerpiece of his campaign.

Oberman, an administrative judge for the Taxi and Limousine Commission and Environmental Control Board, launched his campaign a few weeks ago after deciding that the powerful finance committee chair needed a serious opponent. "I don't think he represents the people inside the district or the Democratic Party," said Oberman. 

For the last few weeks, Oberman has been handing out literature [PDF] at busy subway stations across southern Brooklyn, criticizing Kruger and fellow Fare Hike Four members Ruben Diaz, Sr. and Pedro Espada for scuttling the plan to toll bridges over the Harlem and East Rivers, an act of obstructionism that set the stage for major service cuts and layoffs. Transit riders will feel more effects soon: The MTA's budget gap still exceeds $450 million.

At the Kings Highway station this morning, Oberman questioned whether his opponent can relate to constituents who depend on transit. "When's the last time he ever took the subway?" he asked, before flashing his very well-worn MetroCard. Oberman believes that "this is a commuter district" and that transit is "as important to them as police service or ambulances." 

Oberman supports bridge tolls, if the revenue is used to keep transit fares low and service strong. "We deserve a better transit system," he said. "We're trying to go green and compete as a major metro area."

Oberman also thinks that fighting for transit is a political winner, even if it means supporting bridge tolls. "Are bridge tolls popular in this district? No," he said. "But more popular than cutting student MetroCards." 

To get a sense for how Oberman's message is playing, I spoke to two commuters who took his literature. Andrew Delre, who was waiting for the Q train, said he believes that it's "definitely" important to be represented in the State Senate by another subway rider. What about bridge tolls? "Definitely not," he said. "It's just another tax for the people of New York City."

Another rider, who gave her name as Rachel, said she agreed in full with Oberman's platform. "I don't think they should raise the fares again," she said. "But people with cars should have to pay tolls too. I mean, it's only fair." 

Streetsblog has a message in with Senator Kruger's office to see how his transit platform stacks up against his challenger's.

The Daily News and the Times-Union report that the Bronx pol who played a critical role in derailing bridge tolls last spring has proposed, yes, tolling the East River bridges.

Espada's office says that more than $500 million could be raised annually from two-way $2 tolls on the East River bridges, funds that would be used to prevent service cuts and restore discount student fares. His proposal does not include tolls on the Harlem River bridges. According to the Daily News, the State Senate will not include the idea as part of its upcoming state budget proposal, which may be approved as soon as today.

So has Espada given new life to road pricing or is this too little too late? A back-of-the-envelope calculation by road pricing maven Charles Komanoff suggests that the revenue projections are too optimistic by a large margin, but the net gain -- about $240 million, at most -- would seem to fall within the range needed to cover the cost of maintaining service and student fares.

We have a request in with the Senate leadership for comment. The Assembly, where bridge tolls pegged to the subway fare apparently enjoyed majority support last spring, has been characteristically tight-lipped. "At this point Speaker Silver is still in conversation with all members of the Assembly majority," a spokesperson told Streetsblog this morning.

While Espada hasn't exactly endeared himself to other Democrats in Albany, his change of stance may signify the erosion of the bloc that killed bridge tolls last year. Note, however, that the proposed tolls won't affect downtown-bound car commuters from his district (only about three percent of his constituents, by the way [PDF]). And the Espada/Ruben Diaz, Sr./Carl Kruger alliance had already dissolved with the departure of their disgraced Fare Hike Four colleague Hiram Monserrate.

One thing to keep an eye on is whether any proposal for new MTA revenue also includes an ironclad "lockbox" mechanism to guarantee the money goes to transit. As we've seen, dedicated transit revenue is not, in fact, dedicated exclusively to transit.

Noah Kazis contributed to this post.

Here's the answer we just received from a de Blasio spokesperson:

Given the MTA’s current fiscal outlook, Public Advocate de Blasio believes that our City and State have to make tough choices. The Governor and the State Legislature should not reduce payroll taxes while forcing the City to pay more than its fair share, especially since upstate communities also benefit from the MTA. We should look at other options such as stimulus funding, weight based registration fees or reviving Speaker Silver’s proposal to impose bridge tolls that are tied to the cost of subway fares. But over the long term the MTA must be more accountable and responsible with managing its budget.

Perhaps the "Mobility Tax" should be renamed in honor of Lew Fidler and Carl Kruger.

Despite the fact that the MTA's commuter rail lines, which keep suburban roads from turning into parking lots, are already more heavily subsidized than the subway, we are poised to enact a policy that will lessen the burden on the suburbs and hit the core of the region's economy the hardest.

Are bridge tolls or congestion pricing an option right now? The window to prevent this particular transit catastrophe by putting a price on wasteful driving probably isn't open any longer -- the revenue stream couldn't start flowing fast enough to balance the MTA's books. And the fact is, the same State Senate crew who killed bridge tolls last spring is still in power, and we're nine months closer to election day.

So think of the New York City payroll tax hike, if it comes to pass, as a testament to the obstinacy of Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada, Ruben Diaz, Sr., and the disgraced Hiram Monserrate -- as well as their GOP counterparts like Marty Golden and Andrew Lanza who sat idly by and did nothing to help the Ravitch plan last year.

Nine months after these NYC-based State Senators killed bridge tolls and nearly two years after members of the city's Assembly delegation stopped congestion pricing in its tracks, we now face the distinct possibility that NYC businesses will end up shouldering more than three times the payroll tax rate as suburban businesses. Think back to all the city politicians you've heard float make-believe proposals about reinstating the commuter tax or making only non-NYC motorists pay bridge tolls. This new tax on New York City -- on their constituents -- is their handiwork too.

When Albany slapped a Band-Aid over the MTA budget hole last spring, no one except the architects of the plan pretended that the transit system was actually on sound financial footing. As yet another day of reckoning approaches, lawmakers continue to go to bizarre extremes to avoid admitting that their slipshod funding package has failed.

Though hailing from opposite sides of the aisle, Golden and Espaillat agree: Albany has done its part for city transit riders. Photos: Village Voice/Grand Street News

In describing proposed cuts as "a serious threat by the MTA to get the state legislature to act," Golden seems be acknowledging, in a weird, circular manner, that it’s up to him and his colleagues to properly fund the transit system. But beyond his plan to "call a town hall meeting," what has he brought to the table that would help his constituents who rely on MTA buses and trains?

In the arena of head-spinning nonsensery, Golden has to take a back seat to Adriano Espaillat. As reported in the Manhattan Times, at an event to promote those free student MetroCards that Albany chose to stop funding -- hosted by City Council member, protege, and fellow road pricing critic Ydanis Rodriguez -- the senator from Upper Manhattan unloaded this whopper:

Espaillat said the state government had already filled a hole in the MTA’s budget in the fall, and the authority should find another way to balance its books.

“We gave them money. They should fix our trains. … We gave them money to do that. But we don’t want them to take money about from our children,” he said.

He said he believes threatening the cuts are just a bargaining chip to get the city or state to fill the budget shortfalls of the authority, similar to the 2008-2009 threat to toll East River bridges.

“We stopped them and we can stop them again,” he said.

In other words, Espaillat is boasting that he stopped a funding stream that would have helped "fix our trains."

Contemplating the demise of the M line -- a.k.a. his ride to work -- John Petro of the Drum Major Institute has a piece over at the Huffington Post that plainly lays out Albany's choice: make drivers pay their share for a transit system that reduces traffic, helps the environment, and powers the region's economy, or subject all New Yorkers to a future that resembles the dark days of the city's past.

Estimated fine particle concentrations in winter 2008-2009

In a first of its kind report for the city, the Department of Health has issued a wake-up call for New Yorkers of all stripes: Car and truck traffic is killing us, in more ways than one.

Collecting ground-level samples at 150 sites for a community air quality study conducted last winter [PDF], researchers measured for five pollutants emitted by vehicles and buildings. Among the findings: People in areas with higher traffic densities are subjected to higher levels of particulates (27 percent greater), elemental carbon (45 percent greater), and nitrogen dioxide (37 percent greater) than those in areas with less traffic. In addition to triggering allergies and other illnesses that lead to more hospitalizations and work absences, exposure to these toxins has been linked to heart diseases, lung diseases, and cancer.

While the effects on Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side make for compelling headlines, neighborhoods that get far less media play but are nonetheless saddled with crushing cut-through traffic, highway traffic and truck traffic, like Washington Heights and Hunts Point, are also hit hard.

"It confirms what we've known anecdotally," says Miquela Craytor of Sustainable South Bronx. In addition to regional traffic on the Bruckner Expressway, tens of thousands of trucks travel to and from Hunts Point weekly. Local residents, for the most part, are collateral damage. "The majority of folks in the Bronx aren't driving to go to work in Manhattan."

Sustainable South Bronx is a member of the COMMUTE coalition, steadfast advocates for congestion pricing and BRT. "Things such as congestion pricing are a great tool that can lead to some behavioral changes that are necessary," Craytor says. "The other thing that certainly needs to happen is that we invest in our transit system. The Bronx still is underserved in many areas."

Hat tip to Ben Kabak at Second Avenue Sagas for plucking this graph from yesterday's urgent session of the MTA finance committee. It charts where the money comes from for New York City's free and discount student transit passes -- of which there are more than half a million. And it says a lot about the transit funding mess we're in today.

The cost of the student fare program, which the MTA is proposing to phase out as it attempts to close a startling $383 million budget shortfall, has been increasingly shouldered by the transit agency as contributions from the city and state flat-lined, with the state's share dropping precipitously this year.

Before 1995, the city and state covered student fares, according to the Regional Plan Association. Then each scaled back contributions to $45 million per year, and this year the state dropped its share down to a meager $6 million. As the RPA said in a statement today, "You would be hard pressed to find another transit agency in the country that shoulders the burden of school transit passes."

By threatening to phase out free student fares, the MTA has highlighted a very clear cut and politically sensitive case where the city and state haven't held up their end of the transit funding bargain. Sound familiar? In the weeks ahead, we're going to hear a lot about how to stave off disastrous service cuts, but without a new revenue stream -- like congestion pricing or bridge tolls -- nothing will change the essential fact that the MTA is working on borrowed time.

"In my personal view, we have been eating our seed corn and we face terrible terribly difficult choices," Ravitch said. "Not moral choices. Political choices, social choices of unprecedented variety... You're talking about cutting, not just fat, talking about cutting to the bone."

If he's right, and he probably is, the MTA budget will take yet another whack next year. This is a big problem since the agency is already likely to cut service in 2010 to pay for the shortfalls it had to absorb in 2009. The under-performing MTA payroll tax, which is hugely unpopular in the suburbs, only aggravates an already bad situation.

The really big underlying problem is that regardless of how much the MTA cuts service, it faces rapid increases in "uncontrollable costs" like pensions, health care and Access-A-Ride. These unfunded legislative mandates exert a huge drag on the agency, which is partly what Mayor Bloomberg alluded to yesterday when he called the MTA a "piggy bank."

The net result is that without a new source of funding, the MTA will soon run out of money and options. Let's take it for granted the MTA will be forced by Albany to engage in desperate new financial sleight-of-hand and "seed corn eating" (capital money going to operating expenses, borrowing against future fare hikes). Let's further assume the MTA will have to accelerate the fare hikes planned for 2011. If this comes to pass, in about a year the MTA will be out of options and have to cut service so harshly that even Albany will be forced to care.

It will be a political slug fest worth watching. How deep will service have to be cut before the East and Harlem River bridges are tolled? Are tolls dead, or are they actually inevitable?